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The Next 100 Days Podcast

The Next 100 Days Podcast

By: Kevin Appleby & Graham Arrowsmith
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The Next 100 Days Podcast is a leading UK business show. Through this podcast, Kevin and Graham reveal strategies you can use to improve your business and take it to the next level. In addition to featuring their own advice, Kevin and Graham host amazing guests from across the business world. Often the guests are successful, but lesser-known business owners and entrepreneurs, enabling the show to bring fresh content and stand out from many of the US based business shows. Graham and Kevin believe that business change comes about when a business owner focusses on just one thing that will make a real difference to his business. That might be product development, a new product launch or a marketing campaign. Focussing for less than 100 days, or focussing on too many things generally won't deliver the results you need, Equally, its difficult to maintain effective focus for much longer than 100 days without re-assessing priorities. The Next 100 Days Podcast is your source to learn how to move your business forward, with practical advice and guidance that you can put into action and make a difference in your own organisation within the next 100 days.Copyright 2026 Kevin Appleby & Graham Arrowsmith Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership Personal Finance
Episodes
  • #530 Dr Anton Janse van Rensburg - Burnout

    #530 Dr Anton Janse van Rensburg - Burnout
    Jun 19 2026
    Burnout expert Dr Anton Janse van Rensburg is a practising medical doctor from Pretoria, South Africa, with 27 years of experience as an Integrative Practitioner. Besides his MBChB degree, he has a Master’s degree in Applied Human Nutrition from the University of Pretoria, and an Advanced Management Diploma from Manchester Business School. He is also a trained metal toxicologist.His clinical practice focuses on burnout, mood disorders, adjuvant therapy for cancer patients, auto-immune disorders, severe intestinal conditions, and chronic infectious diseases.Summary of PodcastKey TakeawaysBurnout is a systemic depletion, not just fatigue. It results from neglecting many small, daily habits (rest, connection, diet), not just from overwork.Dr. Anton's method is prescriptive and holistic. It prioritises daily habits (e.g., 20-min power naps, strong connections) and uses comprehensive tests to find root causes before considering medication.Nutrition is a primary tool for managing chronic conditions. A high-fat, low-carb diet can reverse Type 2 diabetes and stabilise mood by reducing cravings for refined carbs and optimising brain chemistry.Purpose and challenge are critical for longevity. Complete retirement is a risk factor for rapid aging; staying engaged with meaningful work or new challenges is essential for maintaining brain health.Burnout: Root Causes & Holistic SolutionsDefinition: A systemic depletion from neglecting many small, interconnected daily habits (physiological, emotional), not just from overwork.Origin of Insight: Dr. Anton's experience managing health for 9,000 workers on a high-stress construction site in Maputo, Mozambique (2000–2003).This role involved diagnosing 30–40 malaria cases daily and managing fatalities, providing a "crossroads" experience that informed his later focus on burnout.Dr. Anton's Prescriptive Approach:Initial Assessment: A deep history of work hours, rest habits, and personal connections.Daily Respite: Prescribes short, scheduled breaks to manage the body's natural circadian dip.Power Naps: 20-minute naps are ideal; naps >1 hour are detrimental to brain health.Social Connection: Emphasises strong relationships with friends, family, and colleagues, citing research on their importance for resilience and longevity.Physiological Testing: Uses comprehensive tests (bloods, stress ECGs) to find root causes, not just manage symptoms.Kevin's Experience: Burnout led to "reduced performance"—sitting at the desk with a large to-do list but accomplishing nothing.Solution: Stepped away from the desk more often and re-prioritised tasks to reduce stress.Mood Disorders & The Role of NutritionDefinition: A broad term for unstable brain chemistry, which can manifest as sadness, cynicism, or even physical fatigue (e.g., heavy limbs, a known symptom of low serotonin).Societal Factors: Increased prevalence in younger generations is linked to social media exposure and a sedentary lifestyle, both of which negatively impact brain chemistry.Nutrition as a Primary Tool:Core Principle: The brain requires healthy fats (avocado, olive oil, nuts, meat) and is harmed by refined carbohydrates.Mechanism: A high-fat, low-carb diet reduces cravings for refined carbs, which drives illness and instability.Case Study (Mood Disorder): A patient with a severe mood disorder saw significant improvement within 48 hours of starting a high-fat, low-carb diet, avoiding hospitalization.Case Study (Type 2 Diabetes): A patient on metformin for 25 years was advised to challenge the medication's necessity.Process: A low-carb, high-fat diet for six months, monitored with fasting insulin and HbA1c tests, can reveal if the pancreas can function without medication.Outcome: If successful, medication can be slowly and carefully reduced.Calorie Counting: Dr. Anton strongly advises against restrictive diets and calorie counting, as they are unsustainable and against human nature.The Future of Work & PurposeAI's Impact: The potential for AI to eliminate jobs raises concerns about a loss of purpose and meaning, which are often tied to work and contribution.Retirement & Longevity: Dr. Anton cautions that complete retirement is a risk factor for rapid aging.Recommendation: Stay engaged with meaningful activities (consulting, volunteering, mentoring) to maintain brain health and purpose.Challenge: The brain, like a muscle, needs to be challenged to grow and stay healthy. Avoiding challenges is detrimental to long-term well-being.The Next 100 Days Podcast Co-HostsGraham ArrowsmithGraham founded Finely Fettled in 2014 to provide data from The UK High Net Worth Database to marketers targeting affluent and high-net-worth customers. He's the founder of MicroYES, a Partner for MeclabsAI, creating lead generation AI Agents & Workflows and introducing the MeclabsAI Platform. Graham also provides an Answer Engine Optimisation solution to get your website in shape to be found by LLMs.Kevin ApplebyKevin specialises in finance ...
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    56 mins
  • #529 - RJ Talyor - AI for eCommerce

    #529 - RJ Talyor - AI for eCommerce
    Jun 12 2026
    RJ Talyor is the Founder and CEO of Backstroke a AI for eCommerce generative content platform for email marketers. Instantly create on-brand, high-performing email subject lines, preview text, mobile push notifications, and SMS messages.Summary of PodcastPodcast introduction and guest backgroundGraham and Kevin introduce the Next 100 Days Podcast and welcome RJ Talyor from Indianapolis. RJ describes Indianapolis as offering the best of a big city with a small-city feel, with about a million people, great sports, culture, food, and good cost of living. He has traveled extensively but always enjoys returning home.Backstroke's AI email generation platformRJ introduces Backstroke.com, which generates performant email campaigns for e-commerce retailers selling clothes, pet food, furniture, and other products online and in-store. E-commerce brands typically expect 20-50% of revenue from email marketing while sending 3-5+ emails weekly, with customers spending 8-12 hours per campaign. Backstroke reduces this to approximately 15 minutes while personalising content so each customer receives a different message tailored to their interests and behaviour.Personalisation through data and engagement Backstroke personalises emails using multiple data layers: subscriber status, past engagement (opens, clicks, conversions), and appended third-party data revealing demographics like age, location, and gender. When additional data is unavailable, the platform uses progressive profiling—analysing engagement patterns to infer preferences. For example, if a customer consistently clicks on men's content over women's content, or prefers dark-coloured shirts over light ones, AI identifies these patterns to drive personalisation, which is more effective than manual analysis.Real-world personalisation: from negative to advocateGraham shares a personal story about Son of a Tailor, a Portuguese apparel brand, where his initial experience was poor—they sent him a shirt too short for his frame. However, the company responded exceptionally well, ultimately creating a monogrammed, high-quality shirt that transformed him into an advocate. RJ explains this is valuable data: AI can flag customers who experienced negative-to-positive journeys as potential super-fans or loyalty advocates, a pattern most marketers miss because they lack time to identify such nuanced customer experiences.AI pattern recognition beyond traditional metricsTraditional RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) models reduce customers to transactional data, but AI can extract signal from unstructured data to identify complex patterns. For instance, AI can recognize when a customer buys different sizes (suggesting purchases for others) or when multiple preferences exist within one account—like RJ's Spotify feed where his children's music preferences mix with his own. AI discerns these overlapping patterns that aren't immediately obvious to humans, enabling more sophisticated segmentation.Team expertise and company historyRJ co-founded Backstroke with his wife Allison, who holds a PhD in deep data analysis and chemical reagents, bringing statistical rigour and predictive modelling expertise. RJ's background includes starting Pattern89 in 2016, an AI company predicting Instagram and Facebook clicks using computer vision and natural language processing, which he sold to Shutterstock. Many Pattern89 team members joined Backstroke, bringing 10 years of AI-based marketing experience, while the team continuously innovates with new foundational models from Anthropic and OpenAI.Implementation results and Surge featureBackstroke achieves an average 30% uplift in conversion rates for new clients. Implementation typically takes about a month for full transformation, but recognising customer demand for faster results, the company launched "Surge," enabling campaigns to launch in 48 hours. This rapid-deployment feature demonstrates predictive capabilities quickly, satisfying customers who want immediate proof before committing to full onboarding.Email variants and human approval at scaleWhile technically capable of generating 10,000+ unique email variants, Backstroke has found that customers require human review of every variant version. Current implementations range from 60-100 variants, with combinations of hero images, subject lines, and templates creating exponential possibilities. The company is building QA agents to enable scaling to millions of variants while maintaining human oversight, recognizing that creative teams ultimately bear responsibility for brand representation.Brand guidelines versus performance metricsA fundamental tension exists between brand teams (who enforce guidelines like "models must face forward" or "only use this colour") and performance marketers (who know "shirts perform better laid on a bed than on a human"). RJ explains this is often gut-feel decision-making based on outdated tests—teams cite tests from a year ago by employees who've since ...
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    44 mins
  • #528 - Allan Khazak - High Intent Annuity Leads

    #528 - Allan Khazak - High Intent Annuity Leads
    Jun 5 2026

    Allan Kazakh runs an agency specialises in generating exclusive, high-intent leads for annuity products. It is called Vroom Media Group. Annuity leads are a type of financial product that provides a guaranteed stream of income in retirement.

    Summary of PodcastAllan's marketing agency and annuity leads

    Allan runs a marketing agency that helps life insurance agents and financial advisors get more customers online. His agency specializes in generating exclusive, high-intent leads for annuity products, which are a type of financial product that provides a guaranteed stream of income in retirement. Allan explained how his team crafts targeted ads based on the specific pain points and needs of different customer profiles, such as affluent clients concerned about taxes versus average consumers looking for income stability.

    Annuity products and the US market

    Allan provided an overview of annuity products in the US market, explaining how they differ from traditional investments and serve as a "safety vehicle" for retirees looking to preserve their capital. He discussed how annuities have become more popular during economic downturns when the stock market is volatile, as they offer a guaranteed return. Allan also highlighted the importance of understanding the macroeconomic climate and how it impacts consumer sentiment when developing marketing strategies.

    Allan's ad strategy and targeting

    Allan detailed his agency's approach to advertising, which primarily utilizes Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads. He explained how they target specific customer profiles and tailor the ad creative and messaging to resonate with each group's unique pain points and needs. This includes using podcast-style ads, video ads, and other formats to grab attention. Allan also discussed the importance of testing multiple creatives to find what works best.

    Scaling the business with AI

    Allan discussed how his agency has leveraged AI to improve productivity and scale the business. By automating certain tasks like video creation, his team can produce more content and test more ad variations. Allan believes AI will continue to change the nature of work, but sees it as a tool to empower his team rather than replace jobs.

    Recap and closing thoughts

    In the closing segment, Graham and Kevin reflected on the key insights from the discussion, including Allan's ability to identify and target specific customer pain points, his data-driven approach to advertising, and his use of AI to drive efficiency. They noted Allan's expertise in a niche market and his success in outperforming competitors through his marketing strategies.

    The Next 100 Days Podcast Co-Hosts

    Graham Arrowsmith

    Graham founded Finely Fettled in 2014 to provide data from The UK High Net Worth Database to marketers targeting affluent and high-net-worth customers. He's the founder of MicroYES, a Partner for MeclabsAI, creating lead generation AI Agents & Workflows and introducing the MeclabsAI Platform. Graham also provides an Answer Engine Optimisation solution to get your website in shape to be found by LLMs.

    Kevin Appleby

    Kevin specialises in finance transformation and implementing business change. He's the COO of GrowCFO, which provides both community and CPD-accredited training designed to grow the next generation of finance leaders. You can find Kevin on LinkedIn and at kevinappleby.com
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    43 mins
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